


In the Span of a Cat-Nap

by komorebirei, mireille (komorebirei)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Never Went to Public School, Adrien and Marinette don't know each other, Adrinette, Adrinette April 2020, Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Napping, Post-Hawkmoth-Reveal, Potential Reveal, Shoulder-Napping on a Train Ride, Slice of Life, adrienette - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23884411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komorebirei/pseuds/komorebirei, https://archiveofourown.org/users/komorebirei/pseuds/mireille
Summary: When Adrien boards the Eurostar for London, all he wants is a nap. Instead, he gets a cute design intern as a seatmate, and his napping attempt proves unsuccessful.Written for Adrinette April 2020 Day 27: Naps. AU where everything is the same, except Adrien never went to public school and isn't personally acquainted with Marinette. Post-Hawkmoth-reveal, and aged-up - they are twenty-one.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 58
Kudos: 514





	In the Span of a Cat-Nap

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I found notes for this among my old drafts yesterday, just in time for Adrinette April Day 27: Naps.

At first, Adrien didn’t see a problem with accepting the modeling gig, since the semester would be over. He didn’t account for how grueling and bereft-of-sleep exam week might be, or anticipate having to rush to catch the Eurostar to London mere hours after his last exam.

Now, boarding the train with a small suitcase in tow and feeling the start of a headache behind his eyes, he bemoans the modern technology that begat the high-speed railway. He wouldn’t mind a long trip and significant nap before having to navigate a new city.

At least the gig doesn’t start until tomorrow, so he has one night to cure his gaunt appearance. The rest will be up to makeup.

After wrangling his suitcase into the overhead storage and shrugging off his pea coat, Adrien sinks into his assigned window seat with a sigh of relief. There's still time before departure, so he doesn't bother with the seatbelt yet. Instead, he gives in to the tug of his heavy eyelids and lets his eyes flutter closed immediately. He wouldn’t mind not moving again until the train reaches its destination.

His hope is cut short when a startled cry and a commotion in the aisle draw him out of his reverie.

A girl around his age with loose, past-the-shoulder jet-black hair, whom he guesses has just tripped and sent one of her belongings skittering across the floor, is leaning over to peer under the seats. Unfortunately, her fluffy marshmallow coat and knapsack are making it difficult to bend down fully, and the people lined up behind her are starting to get annoyed—rolling their eyes, scowling, and blowing out sighs.

Adrien leans over too, to see if he can glimpse whatever she’s looking for.

“Um, excuse me, my book is—” The girl points under the seat in front of him.

“Oh!” Adrien sees the corner peeking out. “I’ve got it.”

Gently, he nudges the book with the toe of his oxford to pull it closer, then snags it with his fingers and brushes off the cover before handing it back. “Sorry for stepping on it. Pretty sure my soles are clean.” He tilts his foot to check. _Yup, clean._

“No need to apologize! Thank you so much,” the girl beams, rosy-cheeked from the cold, embarrassment, and gratitude. She looks at the printed numbers under the overhead compartment and lets out a short laugh. “Actually, looks like this is my seat.”

“Oh! Haha, guess that was a serendipitous stumble, then.” Adrien observes her medium-sized pink rolling suitcase and her relatively short stature. “Need any help?”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” the girl says confidently. Shrugging off her backpack and setting it on the aisle seat, she bends to grasp the suitcase by both handles and begins to hoist it up.

She doesn’t get far before the suitcase lurches to the side. The girl yelps in dismay, and a low chorus of frustrated grunts and complaints erupts from behind her.

Adrien wastes no time in standing to catch the falling weight of the suitcase against his hand. Edging into the aisle for a better angle, he pushes it the rest of the way into the overhead storage. “Got it, huh?” he teases.

The girl’s lip juts out in a pout. “I was handling it fine,” she protests.

“Suuure,” Adrien drawls. “If ‘fine’ means nearly crushing someone.”

“Why don’t you flirt sitting down?” a disgruntled man barks, attempting to shove past.

Cheeks warming with a mix of irritation and embarrassment, Adrien retreats into the seats.

The girl bumps into him as she follows, dodging the stream of passengers that has begun to flow down the aisle.

“Sorry,” they say at the same time.

Adrien sits, and the girl zips the book into her knapsack before pushing it under the seat. Plopping down, she removes her white marshmallow coat, revealing a taupe loose-turtleneck sweater that well suits her dark mauve straight-leg denim pants.

“Sorry about those rude people,” Adrien mutters.

The girl lets out a tinkling laugh as she buckles her seatbelt. “Why are _you_ apologizing? It’s not your fault, and they were rude to you, too.” She inserts her arms into the coat backward, hugging it against her chest like a pillow, and wiggles around a bit to make herself comfortable.

Adrien shrugs. She has an aura of lively brightness that sets her apart from the other passengers. “I got lucky to have you as my seatmate,” he tells her as soon as he thinks it.

She chuckles again, but more subdued this time, almost forced. She seems to be avoiding looking at him as she busies herself with pulling a set of earbuds out of her coat pocket.

Maybe he should have kept that last statement to himself. His verbal filter is notoriously weak at times.

“U-um, hope that didn’t make you feel uncomfortable,” he backpedals. “You seem like a nice person, I meant.”

She looks up with a shy smile, cheeks tinged pink. “No, it’s fine—thanks. I could say the same about you.”

He smiles back. The grumpy man’s words resurface. Are they flirting?

 _Okay._ Adrien decides he’s fine with that.

Now that things have calmed down, he can feel his fatigue setting in again, but it seems discourteous to abandon his seatmate for slumber so abruptly. “So… what business do you have in London?” he asks.

“Fashion design internship,” she responds. “You?”

“Modeling gig,” Adrien answers, before going back to what she said. “An internship, huh? So you’ll be there for a while?”

“Yeah, a year. But wait.” The girl straightens in her seat, eyes widening. “You’re a model? What’s your name? You look kinda familiar.”

Adrien bites his lip, tensing. Even though he’ll probably never see this girl again, he’d prefer to reside in her memory as an anonymous nice guy, not Adrien Agreste, former model and son of former-fashion-mogul Gabriel Agreste, a.k.a. incarcerated terrorist _Hawkmoth._

After almost six years, he’s come to terms with what his father has done, moved on, and settled into the pattern of university student life, but his name is a gateway to reopening the old scab. While there’s a chance a regular civilian might not have read up about Gabriel’s son, it’s less likely that a fashion design intern wouldn’t come to painfully accurate conclusions even from just his first name.

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t know who I am,” he dismisses with a wave of his hand. “It’s been years since I modeled, and—I wouldn’t really call myself a model, anyway. I only took this gig because the extra cash would help right now.”

The girl’s eyebrow quirks. “All right, be mysterious, then… you _do_ know that only makes me suspicious that you’re a world-famous supermodel or something, right?”

He knows she’s joking, but he can’t take it lightly, and his obligatory laugh comes out sounding a bit strangled.

“I’m Marinette,” she says, grasping the bunched-up sleeve of her jacket with her left hand to extend her right for a shake.

Adrien hesitates. It seems rude to learn her name and not tell her his. He decides to fall back on a familiar tactic and give her his second name. It isn’t entirely a lie, and at any rate, she’ll forget all about him once they get off the train. “Émile,” he returns, taking her hand.

It’s a small hand with slender fingers, and her skin is soft and warm. The way she shakes is friendly—gentle, yet confident, and she doesn’t try to let go until his grip loosens first.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marinette.” He anxiously searches her eyes for any sign that she’s recognized him, but to his relief, all he sees is an amiable glimmer of interest.

“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere,” Marinette muses again as her hand retreats into her coat sleeve.

“Well—if you live in Paris, we might have crossed paths before,” he says with a grin, trying to steer the conversation clear of modeling or anything that might lead her back to Gabriel Agreste. “Do you go to university?”

Marinette nods. “Yeah, ESMOD—but I’m always in the studio and barely see anyone besides my classmates and professors. Have you been to Tom and Sabine’s bakery? It’s my parents’, and I work shifts there on holidays.”

Adrien gasps. “I grew up… pretty close to Tom and Sabine’s. So I definitely know the place, but I’ve never been inside.”

“Oh, bummer. Would’ve been cool if you’d been a customer. Maybe we’ve passed in the street or something, if we’ve been neighbors all this time.” Marinette’s eyes sparkle with excitement at the prospect. “I still suspect I’ve seen you in a magazine, though.”

It isn’t the first time Adrien is glad that the five-year hiatus from modeling has given his face enough time to mature out of his teen image. He keeps his hair longer now, too, tied in a low bun. “Maybe,” he shrugs, hoping she’ll drop it.

Despite having no energy for reading, Adrien unfolds his pea coat enough to fish a small paperback out of the pocket—the first volume of _Harry Potter_ in Japanese—just to have an excuse to retire from the conversation or at least change the topic.

“Japanese?” Marinette asks, peering over his shoulder.

Her open curiosity is charming.

“Yeah, I’ve been studying it as a hobby for a few years. My Japanese isn’t all that great, so I’m practicing with something simple I’ve already read in French.”

At her questioning look, he adds, “Harry Potter,” and shows her the cover with a pastel illustration of Hogwarts, featuring a snowy owl, a dragon, and shadowy pointy-hatted figures in the foreground.

“Ooohhh,” she says in a glissando, and her face brightens. “Nice! I love Harry Potter. What house are you in?”

Adrien finds it amusing how she assumes he knows his Hogwarts house just like a person would normally know their blood type or horoscope. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know his blood type—but he does know his house. “Hufflepuff, according to online tests,” he answers with a grin. “You?”

“Hufflepuff?” Her lips curl up in amusement. “That’s cute. I’m a Slytherin.”

“Really?” He leans back to assess her. “I guess I can see that, Miss I-Can-Do-It-Myself.”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “I was just about to catch it before you stepped in with your heroics. Sure you don’t belong in Gryffindor?”

Adrien gasps. “Such house-ism! There are heroic Hufflepuffs too, you know.”

Marinette giggles. Adrien is growing to appreciate her laugh.

“Anyway,” Marinette says, settling down, “I’ll leave you to your reading. Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You’re not disturbing at all!” Adrien assures.

“Glad you don’t find me disturbing,” Marinette jests, eyes twinkling.

Adrien wrinkles his nose at her and turns back to his book, feeling slightly less tired than before.

Several minutes pass before he realizes he’s still smiling from their exchange and hasn’t made any progress in reading. He’s skipping the same indecipherable kanji each time he skims the same line, but his exhausted brain can’t make sense out of the words and his eyelids are drooping again.

He isn’t supposed to be reading, anyway—his goal is to sleep. Giving up, he folds the book and closes his eyes.

At some point, the train starts moving, but he’s dozed off and doesn’t notice until they’re already on their way.

Marinette is listening to music, eyes closed. Adrien turns on his phone screen to check the time. Still more than two hours left.

He closes his eyes again, drifting back into blissful slumber, when his consciousness is yanked back to the waking realm by a soft weight pressed against his shoulder.

Slitting his eyes, he sees a mass of jet-black hair and realizes Marinette has nodded off onto him.

He really doesn’t _mind,_ and he shuts his eyes again because it really isn’t a _problem_ for her to nap on his shoulder. If she’s tired, there’s no need for him to wake her.

Except, the fruity-floral scent of her shampoo wafting up into his nostrils and the way her head bobs back and forth with the movements of the train, reminding him of her presence, make it a challenge for him to fall back asleep.

She’s a _very_ cute girl.

Her head starts to droop forward, and Adrien can feel that she'll slide off his shoulder if she goes any farther in that direction. He reaches up his left hand and ever-so-gently pushes on her fringe-curtained forehead to nudge her back into a stable position. He can’t help but notice how silky-smooth her hair is.

She stirs at the contact, just enough to nuzzle against his shoulder—sending a flutter into his stomach—before going still again. The earbuds have fallen out onto her lap.

For the remaining two-and-change hours of the ride, Adrien keeps his eyes stubbornly closed, feigning sleep, and managing to drift in and out of it at times, but it certainly isn’t the nap he was hoping for.

Rather than well-rested, he feels excited and tingly, acutely attentive to Marinette’s presence on his shoulder. A few times, he considers waking her up because he is deathly tired and really wants to sleep, but each time, he considers the potential embarrassment and lets her be.

(Also, he has to admit having a cute girl asleep on his shoulder is turning his insides to cotton and he doesn’t want it to end.)

He isn’t sure if he’s asleep or awake when the word _“Chaton”_ floats to his ears, soft as an echo.

And suddenly, despite his eyes being closed, they feel _wide open._ He’s hyper-aware of every hushed noise on the train and hyper-focused on his own breathing, trying to make each inhalation and exhalation long and even as if he were actually asleep.

He hasn’t seen Ladybug in years, or even transformed. At Ladybug’s behest, he kept the ring just in case, but there’s no immediate danger and he hasn’t had a reason to use it. They have an emergency contact method in place, but they’ve mutually agreed to keep magical activity to a minimum.

It took him a while to get used to not seeing her every day, and to recover from his soul-consuming crush. Combined with the emotional whiplash of learning the truth about his father, it certainly wasn’t easy—but with Plagg’s support, he’s managed to get his mind and heart into a relatively healthy place.

Yet, hearing _“Chaton”_ is like a crack in the dam, and he can feel the long-buried, complicated emotions clamouring for release. After all these years, the identity of his one-time Lady is still unknown to him, and the possibility that he’s managed to find her without even looking is too sweet a siren call.

He wills her to say that word again and confirm that it wasn’t only his imagination.

She doesn’t, but he spends the rest of the ride waiting, taut as a bowstring.

Before long, the arrival announcement scratches through the PA system. Adrien knows the exact moment when Marinette wakes, because she lets out a little mortified squeak and straightens hastily, sleepy apologies tripping over her tongue.

“It’s really okay,” Adrien assures, ears burning, hoping she doesn’t think him a creep for not waking her up. “I fell asleep, too, so I didn’t even notice,” he fibs.

His second lie of the day.

Once they put on their coats and stand to disembark, he helps with her luggage again (no resistance on her part this time) and watches her backside as they make their way off the train in single file.

 _Chaton_ haunts him, and the fragrance of her shampoo lays over his senses like an intoxicating web. Is it the accidental intimacy that makes him _hope_ that they’ve shared something even more, too? He might have just imagined the name. He was passing in between dreams when he heard it—sleep deprivation does funny things to people.

She walks briskly, and he allows her to outpace him when they emerge onto the platform. It’s the way things are supposed to go. Their paths crossed for a short while, but now it’s time to part.

He’s halfway down the strip, still watching her receding back, when he realizes she’s walking out of his life and he is not okay with that.

He jogs to catch up.

People’s heads turn, including hers when he gets closer. It would be hard to miss the whine of his little suitcase’s wheels trying to keep up.

“Sorry,” he breathes, slowing his pace as he comes astride with her. “I—I lied about my name.”

Her brow scrunches. It’s a look of incredulity— _Why would you lie about your name?_ —and confusion— _Why does it matter anyway?_

At least she’s stopped walking, and she’s giving him her attention.

“I’m Adrien,” he says, and then words begin to tumble out of his mouth like a confession. “Adrien Agreste. It’s just, I’m sure you know what happened with my father, Gabriel Agreste—yeah, _Hawkmoth,_ definitely not proud of that—and I didn’t want that hanging over us the whole way, and… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lied.”

“Adrien Agreste.” His name on her lips comes out quiet as a thought, and several inscrutable emotions cross her face before her features relax.

Adrien feels like there’s something hidden under her serene expression, but she looks genuine enough. There’s none of the suspicion that he dreads, or the pity that he hates.

“Of course… _that’s_ why you looked so familiar,” Marinette says in a louder voice, intending to be heard this time. “You look different with long hair.”

It’s obvious what she means—his face has been plastered over all the billboards in Paris, and as an aspiring designer, it would have been a challenge for her to avoid seeing him in some publication or other. He rubs his neck sheepishly and apologizes again for good measure. She doesn’t look upset with him, but confessing makes him feel worse for lying to her.

She shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. I understand why you did it. But honestly… you’re your own person, and from what I’ve seen, you’re a damn great one. Don’t let your father make you ashamed of your own name.”

He notices a fire in her eyes as she says this, like she’s indignant on his behalf. He cracks a smile. “Thanks.”

She returns the smile, warm but questioning. “You chased me just to tell me your name?”

Adrien opens his mouth, then closes it again, debating how to express his inexplicable, insistent desire to keep her in his life, to get to know her. He tries again. “I’m—only here for a week, but I don’t know anyone in London. Would you want to meet up for… dinner or something, one of these nights?”

“Are you asking me on a date?” she asks, tone coy.

His mind adds the word _Chaton_ at the end, testing how it sounds.

The way she asked, he can just hear it in Ladybug’s voice, and her smirk makes the perfect complement.

“Um… yeah, I guess I am,” he murmurs, devoid of the debonair charm he once laid on thick as Chat Noir, as heat blossoms on his cheeks. Ever since his life did a one-eighty at Hawkmoth’s defeat, he’s grown weary of games.

She hooks her hair behind an ear, giggling at him, which only makes his flush deepen. Yet, he doesn’t feel offended that she’s laughing at him, since she seems to do so fondly.

“Sure. Let me see your phone, I’ll put in my number.” She extends her hand, palm up.

It takes him a moment to fish his phone out of his pocket, because he’s staring at her newly-exposed earlobe. There’s a black stud there, the size of Ladybug’s earrings.

They could just be any earrings, but there’s something about her that’s slowly but surely taking him over in the way that only Ladybug ever has, and his sixth sense prickles.

She punches in her number and presses the call button to send herself his.

“It’s lucky we met,” she says brightly, handing back the phone. Their fingers brush, sending electricity up Adrien’s arm. “Let me know when you’re free. I’ll be looking forward to our date.”

 _Date._ He likes the sound of that.

They walk from the platform to the station a few paces apart, not talking, but not trying to create distance either. Keeping up the act of strangers even though they aren’t quite strangers anymore. The ambiguity doesn’t bother Adrien—the number in his phone is enough of a promise.

They don’t acknowledge one another again until their paths diverge and they exchange subtle waves.

Even if Adrien’s suspicion is wrong, he feels a vague _koi no yokan_ about Marinette—a premonition that he could love her. She’s the second girl to trip into his life, if not the first, and while this time seems less extraordinary, it will likely prove just as unforgettable.

Strange how she ensnared him so thoroughly in the span of a catnap.

**Author's Note:**

>  _koi no yokan_ \- a Japanese phrase that means, the feeling upon meeting someone that you will eventually fall in love with them.
> 
> Based on some canon clues, I headcanon that Adrien likes to study different languages for fun.
> 
> I have reasons for putting Adrien and Marinette in Hufflepuff and Slytherin respectively in this particular one-shot, but I don't think these are the only houses they could fit into. It's really not a big deal in the scope of this fic, but I feel like people will have opinions. ^^ Feel free to share what you think.
> 
> Was it frustrating that they didn't reveal themselves in the end? I didn't include a reveal because I felt like it would overshadow the feeling that I was trying to capture in this piece. What I wanted to write about was that feeling of connectedness that you share with a person when you fall asleep together on public transport, even if they're a stranger. In this fic, Marinette and Adrien are strangers, and even for them to come off the train acting like they're friends is a bit odd. A reveal seemed out of place.
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to leave it open-ended, like they could have a reveal in the near (or distant) future. This will most likely remain a one-shot, though.
> 
> (Sorry for overusing em-dashes.)


End file.
